


From Point A to B

by trash4ficsaboutlurv



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: (The Very Lightest), Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Sam-Centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-09 23:27:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6928720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trash4ficsaboutlurv/pseuds/trash4ficsaboutlurv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam needs to move a box of Riley's things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Point A to B

Sam held the box of Riley’s stuff against his chest, the weight of it digging into the dense muscles of his forearms. He looked at the ladder to the attic and tried to work through the mental calculus of getting the box up there as heavy as it was. The box didn’t contain anything terribly important—just knickknacks really. Riley’s old camera full of pictures of Afghanistan (Sam could still remember Riley’s dry tone as he said, “Oh look, more sand”); his Peace Corp water bottle that made all his water taste metallic and tangy; his Medal of Honor that his mama couldn’t stand to look at, so she shoved it into Sam’s trembling hands at the funeral; Riley’s first condom, the unopened foil creased with age and fingerprints – Riley’s finger prints. A dozen other nothing-things to say that Riley had been here on this earth, that he had lived, and that now he was dead.

Sam had kept this box in his bedroom closet, stuffed behind the neat rows of dress shoes and sneakers since he moved to D.C. He had needed it close to him, but not out where he could see it all the time, where he could dwell on it. It was like when he’d broken his arm in the fourth grade and after the cast came off, he’d needed to press where the fracture had been. There was something miraculous in the way the bone knit itself back together, but also grounding in the faint twinge of pain – was it imaginary? – that Sam had felt as he poked and prodded his mended ulna. The pain of looking at Riley’s box was certainly not imagined, but it was so dull compared to that first explosively, violent bright hurt that Sam liked to marvel at it sometimes. To say to himself, _Look how far we’ve come._

He set the box at the base of the ladder, stumped for now about how to get it from point A to B.

He went back to his bedroom and pulled a few of his dress shirts out of the closet, the ones he didn’t wear that often. He took them into the guest room to join his winter coats and sweaters and the half-dozen extra pair of khakis he owned. When had he become a khaki-wearing fiend? He’d used to wear brightly colored corduroy in imitation of Jay Jay from _Good Times_ and then later on, MC Hammer pants and bad replicas of Prince’s outfits in _Purple Rain._ He had settled into adulthood so easily in some ways. Khaki and button-downs. Schedules that he kept to. Keeping his house clean even though there wasn’t a sergeant to come inspect it. Coffee dates with coworkers. At first, all of that had been a coping mechanism. Maybe not the khaki. But the rest of it. Keeping a schedule had meant keeping busy. _Don’t think about Riley._ Cleaning the house had meant meaningless, monotonous chores that came around like clockwork distractions. _Don’t._ Dates had meant moving on. _Riley._

Sam went back into his bedroom and opened his dresser drawers. None of them were very full except his sock drawer, which was stuffed to the brim with the same brand of ankle-length, athletic, sweat-resistant socks he’d worn most of his life. Even his underwear drawer only had fourteen pair of boxers. 13. Laundry day was yesterday. He had 14 undershirts, two pair of sweatpants, two pair of pajama bottoms, a handful of casual t-shirts. His wardrobe was pitifully small, actually. But it made this easy. He just pushed his things to one side in each drawer, heaped the neatly folded stacks on top of each other.

He looked around his room. He’d forgotten the nightstand. He knelt in front of the little table on the left side of the bed and took out the few crime fiction novels he was supposed to be reading so he and his sister Sarah could talk about them. He hadn’t cracked the spines of a single one. All the books had sinister covers with half open doors and knife silhouettes, and scared blonde women running out of alleys. Why were they _always_ blonde? Sam thought of Sharon, who had fantastic blonde hair, but would most definitely not be running out of an alley, pell-mell and frightened. She’d be raining hell on whatever idiot picked a fight with her. That was sort of beside the point, anyway: Sam was just more of a non-fiction kind of guy. Mostly American history. Random topics that caught his fancy. He’d read four books on the Mississippi Flood of 1927, two or three Lena Horne biographies, a literal tome on the global history of cotton, and that was all in the last year.

He’d done quite a lot this past year, actually. He smiled to remember it all.

He walked around to the right side of the bed and picked up the two picture frames on his night stand. The first was a photo of him, Steve, Nat, Sharon, and Bucky all squeezed in tight and grinning up at the camera, squinting because the sun was so bright that day that no matter which way they turned at Six Flags, it seemed to be hitting them full on. Natasha’s face was pink from sunburn. Bucky had ice cream around his lips. Steve was laughing so hard his eyes were closed. Sharon was trying to smile while also fighting Nat’s hair out of her eyes. Sam was the only one who looked like he was prepared to be photographed. It was his favorite picture in the world. Well, maybe it was tied. The other picture was of him and Riley in their fatigues, scowling at the camera because they were tired and dirty and hungry. They were both wearing sunglasses. Riley’s were that extra reflective, douchey kind that dads in the 90s had worn with their Hawaiian shirts. Riley had bought the pair at a dollar store in Harlem when he and Sam had come home from their first tour together. Sam still had Riley’s glasses – they were in the box – although they were so warped, stretched, and burned in the explosion and subsequent fall that they barely registered as sunglasses anymore. But Sam had recognized those dumb reflective lenses.

Sam set both pictures back in their places, gave his room a final once over. He nodded, satisfied. “Steve!” he called. “You can come move your stuff in!”

“Okay,” Steve answered from somewhere else in the house. Sam listened as Steve’s steps got closer; he was dragging something behind him, which revealed itself to be his suitcase when he rounded the corner. He smiled at Sam. “I put that box in the attic. I assume that’s why you left it out in the hall?”

Sam nodded, feeling all the complexity of his love for Steve tied up with the almost sweet grief he felt for Riley. “Thanks, babe,” he said. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Steve flushed prettily and Sam went to him and kissed his cheek. Steve returned the favor with a light touch on Sam’s hip. “You weren’t strong enough to carry one little box?” he teased, his blue eyes dancing playfully.

Sam shrugged. “I’ve lugged that box around for a while now, actually. Guess I just needed your help putting it away.”

Steve smiled and kissed the corner of Sam’s mouth. “Okay, which side’s mine?” he asked, pointing to the drawers. “I wanna unpack before we go see Nick and the gang.”

Sam grinned, knowing Steve was going to love this. He said with a completely straight face: “You’re on the left.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to watch / read every little domestic thing between these two forever. And I want to read every Sam-centric thin on the internet. And since my insomnia has reared its ugly head, I wrote a thing to meet my need. Come talk to me on tumblr about Sam x Steve. New Tumblr name, guys!!! Because when I commit, I commit. ( I mean, I was already pretty committed, but I NEEDED this). Anyway come talk to me at [samuelwilson-rogers](http://samuelwilson-rogers.tumblr.com)


End file.
